Hi – I have just joined and hope you can help me.

I am based in the UK - and have a 2003 X-Type Sport 2.5 auto - with xenon headlamps.


The left xenon bulb is not working any more.

So would appreciate any help please.



The manual states to contact the dealer for replacement.

Has anyone had a xenon bulb fail?

From what I have read there are 2 parts to the xenon:

1) burner bulb

2) ignitor

Can somebody please advise on how I determine where the problem lies – bulb, ignitor or both.

Also – if any one has any links to where I can buy the burner bulb and ignitor at a competitive price as I imagine the dealer price would be very expensive compared to sourcing the bulb myself.

thanks..

 

Jagl loverforver, odds are, you have 1 of 2 conditions. The more likely is that the fuse has blown and simply replacing the fuse will solve your issue. This would be fuse F16 in the engine bay fuse box. The next most likely problem is that your bulb has simply worn out. You can buy D2S bulbs (35w, factory are 4300K, but you can use 4300K, 5000K, or 6000K, just make sure to replace both left and right sides if going with a bulb that is not 4300K). These bulbs are able to be picked up at any local auto parts store or online at various places. Ebay has a large assortment of them. Please note, you are going to find bulbs that are rated for 35W, 50W, and 70W. YOU MUST!!!!!!! use the 35W bulbs. Using anything else WILL!!!! damage your ignitor. I also recommend having the car off, key in your pocket. I say this because the ignitor can generate voltages up to 23,000 volts. It will make you dance, and not in a good way. The other note worthy thing is NEVER!!!!! touch the glass with your bare hands. Put on clean gloves or use a clean rag to handle the bulb. Getting oil from your fingers (yes, there is still oil on your hands even after washing them) will shorten the bulb life and after seeing what the bulbs cost, you will understand why I say this.

As you are changing out the bulb (since you will need to pull the front bumper cover to access the back of the headlights - see follow on note). this would be a good time to check the pins on the connector to the headlight housing for any discolored pins (all of them should be silver in color). That could possibly be a sign of problems. This will also give you a chance to look at the wiring and make sure that it is all good.

As for removing the headlight assembly. Can you change the bulb without pulling the front bumper cover. People have. But, this is what you are risking. First, with the age of your car, unless you have rebuilt the headlight assemblies, the supports for the headlight internals are brittle and any sort of pushing/pulling that you are going to do is most likely going to break those parts and now you have a much bigger job on your hands as the headlight will not either shine into the sky or to a point 2 meters in front of the car. Secondly, with the headlight housing still in the car, doing any sort of detailed inspection to make sure you are getting the correct parts replaced to get it back to 100% are going to be next to impossible to look at. Should you need to get a new ignitor, I am sure a wrecking yard near you will have an X-type in it that will have the ignitor and they can be had for fairly cheap. Normally the ignitors don't fail. Granted, there is always a first time.

If you need more assistance, let me know and we can go from where you leave off.

 

Thanks for all the invaluable first hand knowledge - I appreciate you sharing.

I will check the fuse first.

The dealer has quoted part number C2S15072 for the burner bulb– at a cost of £190 - not including fitting.

When I google that it seems what jaguar supply is exactly osram 66240 bulb - which costs a lot less elsewhere - around £30!

if it is the bulb I was thinking of getting https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/d2...-hid-bulb.html
which matches the rating you mention above.

Thanks..

 

I also spotted this on the headlamp unit - should I be concerned?


Left headlamp

 

jagloverforver, yes, this is probably what took out the bulb. This is where you will want to get some silicon (RTV) and where the clear meets the colored plastic, you will want to reseal that entire area. Looks like you have a hole somewhere and that is fogging up your housings. The other possibility is that someone left the cover off on the back of the headlight housing and that is letting water into the housing. This is just one more reason to pull the bumper cover off, put the headlight in the oven (clear lenses pointing up, not touching anything) and set the over to 225 and let it sit in there for 20 minutes or so to dry out. You can use a hair dryer. Big thing will be to not let the housing get above 250F. Doing so can cause the clear acrylic to start to deform, then you have a real mess on your hands.

 

Thanks will try and do some checks over the coming days...appreciate your help and advice.

 

If you’re going to remove the bumper and light housing, it would be a good time to rebuild the assembly with new adjusters. They are available on eBay for around $20US. Step by step instructions are also available
I have yet to find an x-type with intact original adjusters in the headlight assemblies.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

Hi - need some more advice please.

As I'm not very good with cars, I gave it to a friend of mine to have a look.

reminder of the issue - the left xenon bulb is not working any more, all other lights (side, indicator etc work fine, only xenon is not working)

He summarises:

1) installed new bulb to left side - bulb did not light.

2) moved right side working Ballast and Ignitor to left side - bulb did not light

3) fuse 16 was fine

4) relay 9 was fine


so to summarise - as he has tried a different and working ballast, ignitor and bulb (and checked fuse 16 and relay 9), but the xenon bulb did not work - any idea on what could still be the issue please.

Appreciate all help and advice...thanks.

 

jagloverforver, odds are, you are looking at a bad ground wire or mounting point for the ground wire. The Xenon bulb system has its own ground wire and this can cause it not to work.

I would say to remove the bumper cover and get the headlight housing loose. With it still plugged in, slide a pin down along the side of the green wire with a blue stripe (pin 1 in the plug). Push it in till you feel it hit metal. Now you can touch your multimeter to the pin to see if you have 12 VDC on this wire. If you have 12 VDC on this wire, then move the pin over to the black wire in pin 8 (make sure not to get pin 10 as it also has a black wire). If you get 12 VDC, then your problem is the ground wire outside the headlight housing. If you get 0 VDC, then you have an internal problem with the headlight housing and you can repeat these checks at the ignitor to narrow down where the bad wire is. This would probably be a good time to also disconnect the plug and inspect pins 1 and 8. You may find one of these 2 dark in color. This would indicate your problem. If this is the case, then you use a scribe or similar device to scrape the darkness off to return the pin to a shiny silver color.

If on the first check (on the green/blue wire) you got 0 VDC, then you need to check fuse F86 in the engine bay fuse box. If you look at the top of the fuse, you can see 2 small metal tips. Touch both of them, one at a time. If you get 12 VDC on one touch and 0 VDC on the other touch, then you have a bad fuse. If you get 0 VDC on both, then your fuse box is bad. If you get 12 VDC on both, then your wiring between the fuse box and the headlight assembly has an issue and will need to be looked at by someone with a good understanding of electricity to make a viable repair.

 

Hi All,

Thanks for all the helpful advice so far.

Since my last post things have progressed a bit...but not for the better by the sounds of it.

You may recall that I'm not very good with cars and so my friend has my car and is looking at the issue to help me out.

He was busy for a couple of weeks and so started to look at it again recently

He stated the following

F16 was blown - so he replaced it.

When ignition is turned on and the light switch moved to position 2 - neither of the dip beams come on...but instead the main beam for both sides come on.

any thoughts on how to best proceed would be appreciated.

 

jagloverforever, when you turn on the headlights, you say the high beams come on, are you also seeing the high beam indicator come on? If yes, then you most likely have a bad turn signal stalk. If you don't, then I would say to swap relays R15 (high beam/fog light relay) with R17 (reverse light relay). Do the lights act normally? If yes, then you have a bad relay for the one you just removed from R15. If no, then remove relay R15 and attempt to turn on the headlights. Do the high beams still come on? If yes, then you have a wiring problem most likely with the connector to the headlights (could be either side). If no, then something has been missed as you should not get to this point.

Now, for your dip beams, swap relays R1 (or R2) and R9. Do the dip beams work now? If yes, the relay in the R1 (or R2) position is bad, replace. If the dip beams still do not light, swap the relays back, but before putting in R9, look at the relay. You should see next to the terminals some small numbers in the plastic (should be numbers 1 thru 5). Find terminals 3 and 5 and relate those to the posts in the fuse box. Using a small piece of 18 gauge wire, strip back about a 1/2" (1 cm) of insulation on each end of the wire and stick the wire into the 3 and 5 openings. Do your dip beams come on now? If yes, then you either have a bad headlight switch or the wiring between the headlight switch and your engine bay fuse box is damaged (it is not the fuse powering this circuit or you would be complaining about a lot of other things not working). If you want to prove this, wrap a 22 gauge wire around the 2 post of relay R9 and install it into the fuse box (leave the other end hanging free, not touching anything metal). With the car in the RUN (position II), you can touch the free end of the 22 gauge wire to any metal part of the car and the headlights should turn on.

If your dip beams did not come on with the jumper wire, then you have either a wiring problem between the fuse box and the dip beams or you have an issue in each headlight housing that will need to be resolved. If you need more help here, let me know. We can troubleshoot the headlight housings out of the car.

Lets see what you have at this point and go from there.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, will take a look.

 

Thank you Thermo, I appreciate your thorough post.

I was just reading your post in detail and was hoping you could clarify on the following 2 points please (sorry in advance if it's obvious and I am missing the point):

'If yes, then you have a wiring problem most likely with the connector to the headlights (could be either side)' - do you mean that the issue could be with either the wires going in to the connector or the actual connector pins?



'If you want to prove this, wrap a 22 gauge wire around the 2 post of relay R9 and install it into the fuse box (leave the other end hanging free, not touching anything metal). With the car in the RUN (position II), you can touch the free end of the 22 gauge wire to any metal part of the car and the headlights should turn on.' - would be grateful if you could please expand/explain this one a bit more please.


Thanks.

 

jagloverforever, I pay attention to what problems people have and what the solutions are. I have an impromptu list of problems and fixes. In the case of headlights, short of a bad bulb, when it comes to the xenon bulbs, the most common problem is the pin (#8) will develop a high resistance and start to heat up, leading to the pin getting discolored and melting the connector. If you pull the connector off of the headlight assembly, it will be pretty obvious. Most of the pins are going to be silver in color and then you are going to have one that just looks nasty, brown/black with melted plastic near it. When this happens, it can lead to back feeding through various lights and it will cause the lights to do funny things. Along those same lines, because some of the bulbs are powered from the same wire, but to the left and right sides, a problem on the left side can be seen on the right and vice versa.

As for the 22 gauge wire wrapped around the post o the relay. This relay receives a ground from the headlight switch to to turn on the headlights. The relay always has power from 2 sources (one to actuate the relay, the other to power the dip beams). By wrapping the wire around post 2 and then plugging in the relay, you are creating a second way for pin 2 to see a ground. By touching the wire to the chassis, this will allow the relay coil to engage, flipping the relay and allowing it to power the dip beams. Having the diagrams for the car helps to see how this happens. If you need them, let me know via a PM.

 

Thermo, firstly - thanks again for taking the time to help.

I haven't had a chance to get your suggestions checked out yet...but I had one question - would an issue with the above items that you suggest to check be a reason for fuse 16 to keep blowing?..ie. a bad relay, or wiring problem, or damaged pin #8 etc.

Thanks.

 

jagloverforver, the only way to get fuse F16 to constantly blow over and over is: 1) bad ballast, 2) short in the plug between pin 5 in the headlight plug and some ground, or 3) the wire (orange wire with a yellow stripe) between the fuse box and the headlight assembly is damaged and is shorting to ground. This is where I would disconnect the headlight assembly, put in a good fuse to F16 and then turn on the headlights. If the fuse blows again, then you have confirmed that your problem is in the wiring harness between the fuse box and the headlight plug. You can look at the plug for signs of damage to pin 5. But, if all that looks good, then odds are your problem lies internal to your headlight assembly.

 

Hi Thermo,

As per your advice - I have been looking at the Electrical diagram 'Exterior Lighting: Front – Non Autolamps; Daytime Running Lamps Fig 08.2'

Looking at the HID part - pin 8 seems to be the HID earth, is this what can deteriorate and possibly cause the issues you describe in this post?




I'm just trying to build up my knowledge before checking the car.

Thanks.

 

Yes, that would be it. They both ground to points just under the headlight assembly.

 

Hi Thermo,

Just had another thought.

As the current issue is:

When ignition is turned on and the light switch moved to position C - neither of the dip beams come on...but instead the main beam for both sides come on.




do you think that the issue could be with the above switch i- and if so is there an easy way to check the switch?

Also - I have just been looking at the electrical diagram again - can you see any value in removing fuse 85 & 86...would that help prove anything?

Just trying to note down as many things as I can to check on the day..

Thanks again.